JOCKEY INJURY BLOW
Barrier chaos threatens career
THE career of champion jockey Dan Griffin may be over after he yesterday revealed he has spent the past three months with a broken neck. Griffin will meet doctors next week to discover if he can return to riding after breaking the C-5 vertebrae in his spine.
THE racing career of the King of the Coast may be over.
Jockey Dan Griffin has conceded his future in the saddle is unknown after revealing he has spent the past three months recovering from a broken neck suffered while riding at the Gold Coast.
Griffin will meet doctors at the end of this month when he expects to discover if he can ever return to riding.
“I’m just waiting to hear what the doctors say,” Griffin said.
“I don’t want to get my hopes up. I’m anxious about it because my future is unknown.”
The 37-year-old was in the barriers with the Chris Waller-trained Lilakai on May 19 when mare reared, sending the respected hoop into the metal posts on his gate (pictured, above right). The Bulletin online also has video of the incident.
It broke the C-5 vertebrae in Griffin’s spine.
Incredibly, the man who has won eight of the past 12 Gold Coast jockeys premierships went on to complete two more rides on the same day.
“It just reared up in the gates and I hit my head on the back of an upright,” he said.
Griffin said it wasn’t until the next morning he feared something was wrong.
“I had pins and needles in my fingers and felt dizzy,” Griffin said.
“My partner Jana sent me up to get an X-ray and they found I had fractured my C-5. I didn’t expect it to be so bad.
“The doctor said I was very lucky. They said they had seen less damage in people who have ended up in wheelchairs.”
Griffin, who spent three weeks in a neck brace, said the past few months had been a mental battle for him, Jana and children Ayla, 6, and Codie, 18. “It’s been very tiring,” Griffin said. “It’s been an emotional rollercoaster.”
FROM BACK PAGE
The revelation of Griffin’s injury comes a week after former jockey Alan Cowie, who was left wheelchair-bound after suffering severe spinal injuries in a race fall at the 2002 Magic Millions race day at the Gold Coast, was inducted into the Gold Coast Turf Club Hall of Fame.
Griffin had only returned to racing in March this year after working his way back from a serious shoulder injury sustained in May last year.
He tore the tendon off his shoulder and broke the bone at its base when a horse went off in the barriers and dislodged him. It was an injury that sidelined Griffin for 10 months.
If given the all-clear by doctors, Griffin said he’d return to trackwork before aiming to race again within six weeks.